Of course, I’m so attached to my characters and so attached to my world that I would be objecting to things that I shouldn’t be objecting to. Somebody else has to take it with fresh eyes and reconstruct it for a different medium. With Bitten, I spent way too much time in Elena’s head, and to put that on the screen would have been boring. To take a book and translate it directly to screen would make a very boring book. It is another version for a different medium. Have you written any episodes of the show yourself?ĪRMSTRONG: I really didn’t have any influence, and that is what I felt was the correct stance to be taken.
There are lots of things in the folklore, like the can only be killed by a silver bullet, that don’t realistically work, if you’re trying to say they have existed for hundreds of years, unknown.ĪRMSTRONG: Especially in the world of fantasy and superheroes, it’s great to have role models that aren’t in skimpy little outfits, in impossible poses. I’m a huge folklore geek and I went through everything I knew about werewolves and cherry-picked what bits of folklore made the most sense, if putting it into a contemporary context where I want people to believe that the werewolves could actually live next door. So, when I’m comparing it to other things, that’s a whole lot tougher for me because I built mine from folklore. If anything, the fact that I wrote about werewolves was a huge strike against me because nobody knew how to sell a book where the werewolves weren’t monsters. My point of reference was The Wolf Man and An American Werewolf in London, so I didn’t have to say, “Okay, what’s currently out there and how can I be different?” This book was written in the late 90's when I didn’t have to worry about what else was out there. Bitten was about coming to understand that what you think you should be is not always what you’re meant to be. I wanted to create a character who would be a werewolf and be uncomfortable with that role, but ultimately come to embrace it. How does this interpretation of werewolves differ from others that are out there?ĪRMSTRONG: Bitten was my first published novel, so it was way back. That goes to show you how long ago I started writing Bitten. I said, “That’s not how I would do werewolves.” And for a writer, that then sparks, “How would I do them?” So, I wrote a short story with this character named Elena, and I loved that world so much that I wrote a book. It was your typical big guy who changes into some beast-like thing and goes around slaughtering people under the full moon. I was trying to come up with an idea, and sat down and watched The X-Files, way back in their first season, and it was their one and only werewolf episode.
I was in a writing group, and as part of a writing group, you’re expected to actually write new stuff. KELLEY ARMSTRONG: Bitten actually came out of an X-Files episode. Question: What was your inspiration for this book?
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